


The One You Feed

by AsheRhyder



Series: More Than True [6]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Chimera!McCree, Crack Treated Seriously, Dragon!Hanzo, Eldritch Abomination!Reaper, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Reaper Bean, That's Not How Psychology Works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 15:03:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8895826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsheRhyder/pseuds/AsheRhyder
Summary: “A man walks with two wolves, and all his life he must chose which to feed.” Zenyatta holds up a golden orb. “I can help him, but he will have to face his monster himself, and even if he wins now, it is a fight he must make again and again. He may not always be victorious. Or…” He holds up another orb, this one black and violet. “You can destroy your enemy. The remnant of his other nature will fade without the rest of him to sustain it, but he will never again hurt another person.“In this situation, I cannot use both. Which would you have me ‘feed’?”  ___Fairy-tale happy endings are a lie Jack gave up on a long time ago. He knows better: there are no happy endings, because the stories don't end. Now, if he could only say the same about the beanbag of a miniature monster that keeps following him...





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chibimono](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibimono/gifts).



> This is the last of the "More Than True" stories. Please read the others for continuity!

    Jack isn’t entirely sure how he ends up being the one to scrub down the small transport ship last used in the disastrous Eichenwald mission, only that the limited resources available to the Recalled agents must be stretched as far as possible. Someone has to remove the blackened remains  of meat and ichor which didn’t dissolve with the rest of the monster Reaper became, and everyone else is either already busy, deployed on a mission, or currently sitting in a medical lab undergoing a mind-numbing number of tests to re-establish baseline health records.

    He doesn’t envy Jesse or Hanzo the attention they’re enduring from Angela; she had been too young to join the first research team assembled to try and better understand the monstrous seventeen-year-old drafted to serve in Blackwatch. Having seen what the monster could do — watching as Gabriel fought metaphorical tooth and claw to help Jesse rein in his literal teeth and claws, watching the older man find new depths of patience as he taught the boy how to compartmentalize pain and anger… Jack would much rather be stuck in the hanger, trying to wash away eldritch horror bloodstains, than crammed in Medical relieving memories of a man like a hole in his heart.

    Except, he realizes, that just thinking about Gabriel Reyes in passing is enough to tear open the old wound as if it had never healed at all. The sting of ‘should have, could have, would have’ is right there, accompanied by the weight of all the things that actually ‘did’, and they push air out of his lungs like being hit with a shockwave. It churns his stomach to _miss_ something he _almost_ had twenty years ago. He lacks the fortitude for grief.

    Gabriel, now Gabriel could bear his own and another’s. Gabriel could shoulder it to salvage the scraps of humanity from a savage seventeen-year-old boy. Jack can’t even think about it without his spiraling into that black pit of loss.

    He thumps his fist on the side of the ship. The pain helps refocus him on the here and now; he’s fighting for the world that’s still there. He’s trying to build something from the ashes. He’s not going to get mired down by thoughts of—

    He punches the vehicle again, harder.

 

    Something falls from the undercarriage with a squeak and a splat.

    Jack freezes. He could write off the splat; Reaper’s remains are thoroughly non-conforming with traditional physics and have in some places completely ignored things like drying times. The squeak is a little harder to explain.

    The confused sounding chirp that follows is just beyond him.  

    He doesn’t even know how he can say it sounds confused. Something in the pitch, maybe? There’s something vaguely animal-like, reminiscent of a whine.

    Jack carefully leans down to see what’s making the noise. There’s a thick looking lump of black ooze by the tire, about the size of his hand. It’s matte black and vibrating slightly. Jack’s gut reaction is to duck away and roll for cover, but before he can move the lump rolls over, revealing a white mark that reminds him of a face.

    More accurately, of a mask.

    Reaper’s mask.

    The primary difference is that the white mark seems malleable; what were eyeholes cut in Reaper’s mask read like actual eyes on the little creature, widening comically as it sees Jack. It trills excitedly, rolling up to face him properly, and that’s all the prompting he needs to leap to his feet and look for a weapon. Why didn’t he bring his rifle into the hanger? Oh, right, he didn’t want to get it wet—

    The blob inches out from under the transport and gets smacked by a wet sponge. It lets out a distressed note, and Jack takes the moment of its distraction to upend the bucket of soapy water.

    “ _Jack!_ ” The word echoes strangely, tremulous and high, but definitely comes from the creature. Jack hesitates only a fraction of a second before dropping the upturned bucket on top of it like a cup over a spider.

    Most spiders, however, don’t manage to push their confinement around the floor and squeak plaintively.

    “ _Jack?_ ”

 

    The ooze knows his name. It can talk, and it knows his name. Jack’s heart pounds against his ribs like it could make a break for the border without the rest of him. The captured lump pushes on the bucket again, inching forward. Jack ends up putting a foot down on top of it to hold it in place. He takes a few calming breaths, and when that doesn’t work he takes a few more.

    “What are you doing?” Hana asks, her voice echoing in the hanger. Jack turns to face her; she’s only in the doorway. She must have just arrived.

    He tries to muster some dignity, and failing that, some gruff stoicism befitting Soldier:76.

    His attempt is utterly undermined as the ooze squeaks against the side of the bucket again and he nearly jumps a foot in the air.

    “Caught… something.” He says.

    “What, like a mouse?” Hana wrinkles her nose. “Rat? Please tell me we don’t have roaches that big.”

    “I…” He could admit he doesn’t know. He could. Hana’s only nineteen, but she’s a soldier too, and from what reports he’s read, she’s seen Reaper before. She’ll only make fun of him for jumping for a few months, tops. He could tell her. Show her the thing in the bucket that knows his name. She’d have questions. She’d have _questions_. “…No.”

    Hana gives him a skeptical look and goes over to her MEKA, pulling out one drive and replacing it with a fresh one, probably to record footage on her next mission.

    “Well, don’t slip on the soap, old man,” she says. “Buzz the comm if you fall and can’t get up.”

 

    She’s almost — _almost_ — gone when the ooze wails again.

    “ _Jack!_ ”

    Soldier:76 flinches.

    Hana freezes.

    “What was that?” She asks, but her eyes are already on the bucket. Jack gestures helplessly.

    “It makes noise.”

    “It talks?”

    “It—“

    “ _Jack?_ ” The thing all but keens.

    “I have to see this.”

    “I’m not letting it _out_.”

    Hana huffs impatiently and looks around the hanger. She comes up with a thin sheet of metal panelling usually used to cover fuse boxes, and between the two of them they get it slipped under the bucket so they can turn it over. The creature inside falls to the bottom with a distressed trill. Hana peeks inside.

    “I can’t decide if it’s adorable or awful,” she says.

    “It’s left over from Eichenwald,” Soldier informs her.

    “The one with the…” She gestures expansively and with wiggling fingers implying tentacles. He nods, and she scrutinizes the ooze.

    “ _Jack?_ ” It chirps. If Jack’s imagination was generous enough to consider that this thing can have feelings, he’d say it sounded sad. Almost… lost.

    He refuses to allow that thought to actualize.

    “It’s cute,” Hana says, fracturing his newly minted resolution.

    “It’s a mini slime monster.” He feels the need to emphasize, since his first explanation apparently isn’t getting through to her. “Mini. Slime. Monster.”

    “It’s like a little dumpling. Or a beanbag.”

    “Hana.”

    “I’m not saying it’s not dangerous!” She rolls her eyes. “If it came off that creepy ghost thing, it’s definitely trouble. I’m just saying it’s cute. Like… a little Reaper Beanbag.”

    “ _Hana_.”

    “Reaper Bean. That’s what I’m calling it.”

    Soldier lets out a frustrated groan. Hana cants her hips and crosses her arms in rebuttal.

    “Relax, old man,” she says. “I want to keep this little cutie in mind for if we ever run into the full-size creepy version again. Much easier to look at, you know?”

    Jack finally catches on, and hot shame burns under his mask. It’s been a long time since he faced an enemy that made him feel anything but bitterness and disappointment, but he can still remember what it’s like to need a way to tear down your opponent’s imago.

    “Let’s bring it to Winston,” he says, because he’s still rusty at apologies. Hana is gracious enough to let it go. She slaps the makeshift lid on the container and generously ignores the Bean’s chirping cries of “ _Jack?_ ” as they head for the labs.

 

    Winston is both fascinated and concerned by the Reaper Bean. He, too, kindly ignores the little creature’s repeated use of Jack’s name while it’s poked and prodded. He promises to let Soldier know if he discovers anything useful and promptly gets to work running scans.

    Jack watches a moment, feeling out of place but at the same time somehow unable to leave outright with the Bean still peeping for him like a baby bird.

    Eventually he hauls himself away to update security protocols. If the Bean — if that _thing —_  really is tied to Reaper, who knows what might be compromised, or worse, what might be coming after it. He works himself to exhaustion and passes out as soon as his head hits his pillow.

 

    That night, he dreams of Gabriel.

    It’s not the first time he’s seen the other man in his sleep. Sometimes they’re friends, the way they were during the Crisis, a near perfect match of power and precision. Sometimes they’re enemies, they way it looked like things were heading before the explosion. Sometimes they’re something else entirely, something that has only ever existed in Jack’s dreams and in the desires his heart now has trouble committing to words.

    Tonight Jack isn’t quite sure which of the three Gabriel is. He blinks into the grayness preceding daybreak, and the darkness burns away from him like mist burning off in the morning sun, leaving a familiar figure in gray and black.

    Gabriel's scarred face holds a twisted mix of longing and loss, hungry for something constantly out of reach and lined with the grief of knowing that and wanting it anyway.

    “ _Jack,_ ” he whispers, and his voice rips through Jack like a bullet.

    “Gabe—“ Jack reaches, but the night drags Gabriel with it when it goes, swallowing him whole before they can touch.

    He jolts upright, and something that was lying on his chest goes flying across the room. It hits the floor with a squeak and a splat, two sounds in conjunction that Jack was hoping not to hear again. He glares down at the Reaper Bean like the wrath of a particularly unforgiving deity.

    “What the hell are you doing here?” He growls.

    “ _Jack!_ ” the Bean chirps.

    Jack runs a hand down his face. It’s too early for this. Whatever this is.

    “ _Jack?_ ” The Bean sounds less excited, more concerned.

    Jack drags himself out of bed, throws on pants, and grabs the Bean before his sleep-addled brain screams loudly enough for him to remember that touching the strange creature with his bare hands might not be the best idea.

    But the Bean isn’t slimy; it’s not even damp. For all its strange sounds, the creature is dry and smooth like kid leather. It warms quickly under the heat of Jack’s hand, and it feels oddly dense for as fluidly as it moves. The Bean practically melts into his grip and starts vibrating softly, almost like it’s purring.

    Jack drops it out of sheer shock. It squeaks again when it hits the floor and turns its face-like markings up to him.

    “ _Jack?_ ”

    He reaches for his visor.

 

    Jack ends up wrapping it in a towel and hauling it down to Winston’s lab again. The gorilla lays sprawled in front of the computer, snoring softly while the screens scroll through the results of his earlier tests: all inconclusive.

    “It’s following me,” Soldier says, and Winston snuffles awake.

    “What’s following you where?”

    He holds out the wiggling towel.

    “The Bean. The thing Hana and I found. It escaped and came after me.”

    Winston rights himself immediately and adjusts his glasses.

    “Are you all right? What did it do? Do you need medical attention—“

    “I’m fine, it just —“ Jack pauses. “It just snuck in.”

    “Do you know what it was after?”

    “ _Jack_.” The Bean says, muffled.

    “No,” says Jack, clearly.

    “All right. Well. I’ll try a different containment system. I’m sorry it bothered you.” Winston takes the towel and putters about the lab, trying to jury rig a new enclosure.

    “ _Jack!_ ” The Bean calls out, but Jack turns on his heel and leaves the lab before the sound can tug at his grizzled old heart strings.

 

    He heads back to the hanger. He’s at a loss for something to do — it’s too late to get any more sleep, but too early to start making breakfast, and Athena will rat him out to Angela if he starts trying to train at this hour. He decides to finish cleaning the ship, since he got distracted from it the previous day.

    He’s only just finished emptying out the first bucket of dirty water when he runs into McCree. Almost literally, really. The cowboy has none of his iconic equipment, leading Jack to believe he escaped from Medical while Mercy was busy with something else. Neither man shouts, but they both tense in a way clear to anyone watching that they have to stop themselves from reaching for guns they aren’t currently carrying.

    Soldier’s eyes skim the impressive amount of bandages that cover McCree’s body. It’s truly some kind of miracle that he’s alive, much less moving, after the mess Reaper made of him.

    “Should you be up?” He asks. McCree’s lip curls back in a grimace; his teeth, Jack notices, are still sharper than usual.

    “Needed the fresh air,” he replies. “Don’t much like being caged.” He draws in a deep breath, but instead of relaxing, he frowns. An instinctive frisson runs up Jack’s spine and out to every nerve ending, but he holds still, even as McCree growls. “You smell like death.”

    “I’ve been cleaning the mess you made out of Reaper,” Jack says. McCree nods slowly, eyes drifting across the hanger to the half-scrubbed ship.

    “I doubt that’s the last we’ve seen of him,” he mutters, and then he drags his eyes back to Jack. “About Reaper. I think…”

    He stops. Jack watches indecision war across the younger man’s face. Eventually, he settles.

    “Well?” Soldier prompts, perhaps more brusquely than necessary. McCree doesn’t look fussed.   

    “It doesn’t matter until he keeps cropping up.” He shakes his head, messy hair flying about his face like a mane. “Just don’t let him goad you into fighting one-on-one if he does.”

    “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

    “I think you’re a half-decent man, Soldier,” McCree says with a lupine smile, “and I’d hate to see what kind of monster they’d make out of you.”

    “If I’m not one yet, I’m not going to be,” says Jack without thinking. McCree’s smile cracks like thin ice, and the river below it runs deep with self-loathing and remorse.

    “For your sake, I hope you’re right.”  

 

    Jack finishes cleaning the ship over the course of the day. He lets himself get lost in the mindlessness of the work so he doesn’t have to think of Gabriel, of the Bean, or of monsters. He eats a late supper, has a hot shower, and goes to bed with the hope of nothing but a dreamless sleep.

   

    He dreams of Gabriel again, instead. Gabriel with hungry, hurting eyes. Gabriel with reaching, seeking hands. Gabriel with a single word on his tongue like a burning coal.

    “ _Jack,_ ” he whispers, and Jack buries his head under the pillow as if it can block the ghost in his head. “ _Jack. Jack!_ ” Gabriel’s call turns harsh, desperate, just like the same last burst of panic Jack remembers before the explosion temporarily deafened him and the Swiss base started burning.

    He throws himself out of bed and lands on the floor, which hurts, and on the soft, dense lump of the Reaper Bean, which does not hurt quite so much.

    “ _Jack_ ,” the Bean groans, pressed nearly flat under his weight.

    “You again?” He growls. He grabs the Bean and tries not to feel bad when the creature just sighs and presses into his palm.

 

    Winston blinks curiously at the Bean, then at its empty container, and then back at Jack.

    “You realize that it’s barely five in the morning?” The gorilla says grumpily.

    “Be glad I didn’t bring my bugle,” Soldier replies.

    Winston sighs and turns to his computer.

    “Well, I’ve detected a fair amount of bio-nanotech in the entity, but so far nothing that seems dangerous,” he says. “No transmitters, no explosives, no recognizable venoms or acids.”

    “Just biotech.” Soldier huffs.

    “I’ll ask Mercy to consult at a more decent hour,” Winston says, more than a little reproachfully.

    Jack isn’t sure what prompts him, but he just nods and says, “I’ll wait.”

    “ _Jack,_ ” the Bean cheeps.

    Winston looks back and forth at them.

    “Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?” He asks with thinly veiled distress. “About— you know?” Soldier stares back in stony silence. Eventually Winston sighs and returns to his computer.

 

    Jack’s pretty sure the gorilla waits until mid-morning to call in Mercy out of some sort of attempt at spite, but other people have tried much harder to play the waiting game with him, and Jack is more patient than Winston is remotely spiteful. Besides, his visor and face mask mean he can stealth-nap while Winston’s distracted by his tests.

    Mercy’s arrival, however, is met with a reaction from the Bean that confirms its relation to Reaper. The moment she walks into view, the Bean draws itself up to its full height, its face marks crease like a scowl, and its edges haze.

    “ _Die!_ ” it hisses. “ _Die, die, die!_ ”

    Mercy draws up short and stares.

    Winston hits a button and adds a new layer of barriers to the containment unit. Soldier just frowns.

    “Is that—“ Angela asks.

    “Hell if I know,” Soldier shrugs. “It fell off the transport from Eichenwald.”

    Winston gestures for Mercy to come look at the analysis on the screen, already fascinated by the change in readings that her presence catalyzed. Jack knows the scene of two scientists about to do some heavy-duty science, and he abruptly remembers exactly how little interest he has in hours of their jargon, so he quietly excuses himself to go update security protocol for this reinforcement of Reaper’s involvement. He almost makes it to the door before the Bean realizes he’s leaving and switches gears.

    “ _Jack?_ ” It calls out. It almost sounds afraid.

    Soldier flinches and glances back to see if Angela caught the name. She did, if the momentary look of compassion on her face is anything to go by. But then some epiphany strikes her and consumes her attention with dread, and her hands fly across the touch screen with fervor Jack can only match in combat.

    He leaves before the Bean can call to him again.

 

    Jack buries himself in updating defense protocols. He clocks the maximum amount of hours in the training room that Athena will allow before alerting Medical. He cleans his pulse rifle, restocks his rockets, and even polishes his boots. He jumps at the chance to take a two-day mission to England to investigate reports of a bomb, which turn out to be a false alarm, and when he finally comes back he’s met at the ramp by a grave-faced Mercy.

    “Casualty or fatality?” He asks immediately, and is both confused and relieved when she shakes her head.

    “The team is fine,” she says, then corrects herself. “The team is in the same condition as when you left. McCree _would_ be fine, if he stopped sneaking out to cuddle with Hanzo.”

    Jack manages to keep a straight face even though his mask means he doesn’t necessarily have to.

    “Cuddle?”

    “It wouldn’t be such a problem if they didn’t keep changing shapes.” She sighs with the resignation of someone who’s learned to normalize a complaint too quickly. “I think they’re trying to work on their control, but every time he does it, I have to redo his bandages.”

    “You want me to speak to him?” Jack remembers the last time he tried to reprimand Jesse; it hadn’t gone so well that time, either.

    “No, no, I’m here about the— what was it Winston said you called it?”

    “Reaper Bean.” Funny how quickly the words leave his mouth.

    “Right, that.” Angela’s expression is stern and concerned. “Follow me, please.”

    “You can’t just say it?” He asks, and she swiftly trades his rifle for her tablet.

    “Watch and walk, please.”

    Jack stares down at the screen. It takes him a few steps to realize that there’s anything _to_ see, that the nearly flat dark shape in the corner isn’t just a shadow cast by the equipment in the lab. But no, the little form shakes gently, and when he focuses, he can hear a whisper.

    “ _Die. Let me. Let me die. Die. Jack. Jack let me… let me die._ ”

    Jack stops in the middle of the hall.

    Angela takes the tablet before he drops it.

    “It said— it said that?” He demands.

    “He’s been saying those words all day in some arrangement or another,” she says, professionally calm to the point of overcompensation. “He isn’t what I thought he might be. I’m not entirely sure what to make of him, really, but… there’s definitely some consciousness there.”

    “He?” Jack latches on to one piece of information at a time, floundering in the surprising chasm that opened up in his heart at the overt _pain_ in the Bean’s voice.

    “Because Reaper is—“ Angela sighs and hands Jack back his gun. “Anyway, his energy started flagging when you went to England.”

    “So?”

    “So I want to see if he recovers now that you’re back.”

    “Are you kidding me?”

    “Many beings can die of loneliness. Failure to thrive is well documented and known throughout the sciences.” Angela’s voice is clipped and tense.

    “I don’t see why you think I—“

    Angela whirls on him then, an avenging angel even without the imposing wings and halo of her Valkyrie suit. The moment crystalizes into a stand off, each holding their cards close to their chest, each daring the other to play their hand first.

    She makes the first move, and in this case, it’s a one-hit knock-out.

    “You brought it to us, rather than destroy it yourself,” she states. “It’s too late to wash your hands of it now.”

    Jack doesn’t sputter or protest. He can see he’s already lost this fight.

   

    They enter the lab, and even over the hum of the various electronics, Jack can hear the Bean wheeze.

    “ _Die. Die. Let me. Let me die._ ”

    “It’s not so bad,” Winston murmurs. Watching him try to console a blob the size of his thumb has a certain surreal quality that Jack’s not sure he’ll get over.

    “Is it as melodramatic as its damn namesake?” Jack asks, walking up to the enclosure. The Bean twitches, making the marks on its face look like its eyes go wide.

    “ _Jack?_ ” It chirps weakly.

    “It can’t start shooting anything, so I highly doubt it can reach quite the same levels.” Winston snorts.

    “ _Jack!_ ” The Bean rolls upright and over to the edge.

    Angela doesn’t comment.

    “So it’s not dangerous?” Jack looks to Winston’s computers rather than at the Bean, which seems to be annoyed by the lack of attention.

    “As I said before: I can’t find any of the usual sorts of danger about it.”

    “It has only the most basic similarities to the readings I took from McCree and Hanzo in their alternate shapes,” Angela says. “But as I have no data on Reaper’s… more extreme alteration… I’m not really sure what causes this. This little fellow certainly doesn’t share his counterpart’s temperament.”

    To Jack’s horror, Angela opens the containment unit. The Reaper Bean hisses at her, but she just gives it a little boost from her Caduceus, and it grumbles like an annoyed cat.

    “What are you doing?” Jack winces at the sharpness of his own voice. Angela doesn’t even blink. She scoops up the woozy Bean and deposits it in Jack’s hands like its some kind of baby animal.

    “He doesn’t appear to eat or drink, so that should simplify his care,” she says. “I would recommend keeping him away from bright lights and extreme temperatures, though.”

    “What?” Jack’s voice goes a little shrill. He can’t help it. He might be going into shock. The Bean purrs into his palm.

    “Also, don’t let him near the microwave, just in case.” Winston isn’t even looking at him; he’s closing out files and opening new ones.

    “Just in case of what?” Jack demands, but neither of them are listening anymore. “Hey!”

    “ _Jack?_ ” the Bean peeps, nuzzling into the curve between his first finger and thumb.

    “Don’t you start,” he growls. The Bean answers with a rolling trill that sends a pleasant shiver down his spine. “Seriously, what am I supposed to do with it?”

    “What did you want us to do with him?” Angela retorts.

    Jack stares down at the Bean and finds he has no answer.

 

    He dreams of a smile pressed into his throat and a rumbling sigh of contentment, “ _Welcome back,_ ” before the darkness shrinks beneath the dawn. He wakes up aching for something that never was, something he knows never could be, and the loss of it makes him want to cry and curse.

    At least this time he doesn’t accidentally throw the Bean across the room, something the little creature seems grateful for, by the way it tries to nudge against his thigh.

    “Go away,” he growls, although it sounds half-hearted even to his ears.

    “ _Jack?_ ” The Bean doesn’t move.

    “Stop calling me that. It’s supposed to be a secret.” He stops himself, realizing he’s arguing with a semi-sentient ooze. “Crap. Now even I’m talking to it.”

    “ _Jack._ ” It says, and damn if it doesn’t sound reproachful.

    “What do you want?!” He refuses to be chided by a lump of leftover monster. He stands up so he can glower down at the Bean, but it remains unfazed by the height difference. If anything, it seems to take it as a challenge, because it straightens up as if it has shoulders to square or a chin to set.

   

    Jack is spared the indignity of losing his temper by an alarm going off. He throws on his gear instead and races to the war room.

    “What’s the situation?” He demands as he bursts through the door.

    “Reaper is attacking King’s Row,” Winston says, flipping through screens of data.

    “Talon?”

    “I don’t think so.” The gorilla frowns. “It looks like a rampage. Maybe a hunt? He seems…” He flips a screen around, showing Jack a picture of a monster he wants very much to never see again. Reaper doesn’t exactly look like he did when he and Jesse last fought, but he’s still far from human, with more mouths and eyes than any one creature needs.

    “All right. I’ll—“ Jack halts at the apologetic expression that creases the gorilla’s face. Cold dread flushes through his gut, but he buries it deep. “Who’s going?”

    “McCree, Genji, Hanzo, Mei, myself, and Angela.” Winston admits.

    A muscle twitches in Jack’s jaw and throat as he tries to figure out Winston’s battle plans.

    “Mei?” He gapes, just a little.

    “Her ice walls provide cover against pretty much everything he can throw at us.”

    Jack has to concede that.

    “McCree?” He continues.

    “Has proven to be… brutally… effective against Reaper in the past, and we’ve seen that so have the Shimada dragons.”

    Jack nods reluctantly.

    “Good luck,” he says. The others start filtering into the war room, and Jack silently takes up a back corner to watch the proceedings from as much of a distance as he can get.

    The six chosen team members load into one of the transports and take off. Jack watches morosely and wonders why it still feels like the weight of command rests on his shoulders when Winston obviously has it under control.

    “A moment, if you will.” Jack startles as Zenyatta speaks up behind him.

    “What—?” He tenses as the Omnic monk reaches up and plucks something from Jack’s collar. Instantly the weight is gone; the weight of Reaper Bean, now suspended between Zenyatta’s fingers. The Bean squeaks and struggles, but cannot pull itself free. The monk deposits it in Jack’s hands.

    “Your little friend had a tenuous grip. I thought he might do better in hand rather than on shoulder.”

    Jack growls, frustrated.

    “How the hell do you keep following me? Do you do that creepy shadow-walking thing the other one does?”

    “ _Jack!_ ” the Bean squeaks.

    “Ah,” says Zenyatta, as if he has just reached a new type of enlightenment.

    Jack’s glare snaps over to him, but the monk’s face is infuriatingly unreadable by design.

    “What do you mean, ‘ah’?”

    “I mean ‘ah’.” Zenyatta says. Jack fights the urge to punch him; he’s punched Omnics in the past, and it always hurts. Besides, he’s not entirely sure that Zenyatta won’t punch back.

    “Care to elaborate?” He fumes. Zenyatta tilts his head and hums thoughtfully.

    “Only if you wish to address the reason he calls that name in particular, Soldier:76.” He cautions. “I cannot do one without the other.”

    Jack is starting to get tired of losing at Revelation Chicken. It seems like everyone already knows his big secret and now he’s not even sure how to own up to his own name anymore.

    Zenyatta pats him on the shoulder as the Bean tries to settle between Jack’s palms.

    “Should you need assistance, I will happily aid in occupying the little one’s attention.” He floats off, serene as ever. Jack watches him go and decides to trudge to the command center. Maybe he can hack into the CCTV and monitor the mission’s progress.

 

    The mission is a nightmare. Reaper tears through the streets and alleys of King’s Row, apparently searching for something so fervently he doesn’t care who sees his movements. The only consolation is that he doesn’t have any interest in civilians whatsoever, and that local law enforcement has decided they aren’t paid enough to deal with something that looks like it clawed its way out of a Giger painting.

    McCree, Hanzo, and Genji try to push him back into containment set up by Mei and Winston, but Reaper lacks the cold rationality and focused fury of their previous encounters, and they can’t count on their plans. Predicting his movements is a crapshoot at best, and Mercy has her hands full trying to mitigate the damage of each mistake.

    Through the grainy, tapped CCTV cameras that litter London, Jack sees Hanzo catch a tentacle to the chest that probably breaks a few ribs. Jesse just snaps.

    The chimera is different this time around; what little Jack has seen of it has never been in the same assembly twice. It has raven wings and wolf jaws, bear claws, bison horns and armadillo plates. It curls around Hanzo defensively while Mercy goes to work, and the wraith snarls inarticulately as Genji does his best to slice away at it with his Dragonblade.

    It’s at that moment that Jack realizes the Bean is shivering.

    “What’s wrong with you now?” He grunts, holding the Bean up for examination. “Can you feel what the big one is feeling? Huh?”

    “ _Die,_ ” the Bean mutters. “ _Die. Let me. Let me die. Jack. Jack, let me. Die. Let me. Let me._ ”

    “Hey, stop that.” The raw desperation in the Bean’s rumbling little voice sets his nerves on edge. It reminds him too much of long ago days in muddy fields, dragging at the mangled bodies of fallen soldiers in futile attempts to reach help.

    “ _Jack_ ,” says the Bean, far too weary for such a small thing.

    “None of that,” he commands. The Bean sighs and settles against his palm, leaving him to wonder how he started caring about the well-being of a sentient beanbag.

    On screen, Reaper slips into a storm drain and vanishes in the darkness. Genji scrambles for a way to follow, but Winston holds him back. Mercy says something to the chimera, and it shrugs and collapses back into Jesse’s familiar, if shaky, form.  Hanzo gets to his feet and touches Jesse’s wrist. It’s a small gesture, almost lost in the poor quality of the feed, but Jack sees it and sighs.

   

    Winston radios back: the deployed team is going to try and track Reaper down. Unlike earlier encounters, this time he’s left a trail. They hope to stop him before he gets too far away and causes too much damage.

    “Be careful,” Jack warns them. “It could be a trap.”

    “Don’t you worry none,” Jesse calls over Winston’s shoulder. “I’ll flush ‘im out.”

    “That’s why I’m worried,” Jack grumbles. The Bean snickers. McCree pouts.

    “Harsh, Soldier. Mighty cruel.”

    Jack considers attempting to apologize, but McCree has already wandered off screen.

    “I’ll keep you posted,” Winston promises. Jack can’t ask for anything more than that, so he just nods.

 

    He trains. Shucks his jacket by the gym door and practices with the punching bag for a few hours, until his lungs burn and he starts to feel his age. The Bean cheers him from the sidelines, calling his name.

    “ _Jack! Jack! Right! Right, Jack!_ ”

    He mostly ignores it.

 

    Sleep doesn’t come easily that night. His blood boils with the feeling he ought to be doing something. Everything. Anything but sitting around and waiting for orders.

    It used to drive Gabriel nuts when he got antsy like this. The other man would catch him drumming his fingers, bouncing his knee, or tapping his foot, and he’d always get this _look_. Jack couldn’t tell if it was fond or frustrated — with Gabriel, it could have been both.

    He remembers, much as he wishes he didn’t, one time when Gabriel reached over and pinned his fidgeting hand beneath his own.

    “Don’t _wait_ ,” he growled. “ _Watch_.”

    They were so much younger then. It had taken him far too long to realize what Gabriel meant. Not he wants to watch, but he can’t, so he has to wait.

    “ _Jack,_ ” the Bean sighs.

    “What?” He growls.

    “ **_Jack._ ** ” It rolls over his fidgeting fingers like a cat settling in for a nap, a warm, gentle weight that both grounds him and sends him crashing back to those younger days. He closes his eyes tight and tries to block everything out.

    Eventually it must work, because he dreams of Gabriel holding his hands and stroking his hair, whispering his name against his forehead like some kind of benediction. When he opens his eyes there’s no one there but the Bean, and Jack feels like he might asphyxiate for missing a man who was gone long before he died.

 

    In the morning, he finds Zenyatta meditating by the cliffs overlooking the water.

    “Good morning, Soldier,” the monk says as he strides up, the Bean held out in front of him like a misbehaving puppy.

    “Can you watch this today?” He asks, and when Zenyatta doesn’t immediately reply, he adds a sheepish, “please?”

    “If that will put your mind at ease, I can certainly assist.” He nods, accepting Reaper Bean like a precious gift. “You seem greatly distressed. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

    “No,” Jack says, shaking his head. “Just old memories. I gotta get them sorted, remind myself what really happened in the end, why it’s no good missing…”

    Zenyatta hums thoughtful and settles the Bean into his lap. It struggles to reach out for Jack, trilling unhappily, but the monk rests a hand on its head and it goes still.

    “In my travels, I heard a story of a man who walked with two wolves — one good, and the other evil. The two wolves fought each other constantly. When asked which one would win, the man replied, “the one I feed”.”

    “So?” Jack tries not to remember Jesse’s lupine grin or the many, many mouths of Reaper’s monstrous form.

    “Few things in are so simple as that, but the path you walk to approach them can change what you find when you get there.” Zenyatta says. “Walk in harmony, Soldier, and find peace, if you so desire it.”

    Jack snorts and stalks off.

    Behind him, the chimes of Zenyata’s orbs fill the air, and if there is a startled gasp, he’s too deep in his own memories to hear.

    He never sees the shadow that grows taller in the golden light of the Iris.

 

    Without the Bean nuzzled up to him, purring and chirping, it’s easy for Jack to slip back into the darker mood that drags at his Soldier:76 persona. He smothers himself in training exercises and empties his weapons into the targets.

    Every shot is a word, a curse, an accusation. Things Gabriel said to him. Things he said back. Things they both yelled, red in the face that the other dared raise their voice. Things they never should have said.

    Things meant to hurt.

    Things that left wounds that never healed.

    Jack reminds himself, quite thoroughly, why he no longer loves Gabriel Reyes. Why he _can’t_ love Gabriel Reyes. He counts reasons like he counts bullets, and he never really runs out.

    Stubborn.

    Prideful.

    Secretive.

    Ruthless.

    Hot-tempered.

    Passionate.

    NO.

    He recounts the times they clashed, every argument from what made better burgers to the most clandestine of Blackwatch’s worst missions. Their last great fight is an endless roar in his ears, their voices drowning in the explosion, and then in the darkness of the Fall—

    The lights in the training room suddenly go out and he freezes, caught in between the past and the present.

    Hana flicks the switch back on.

    “You okay, old man?” She asks warily. Jack has to take a few ragged breaths before he can answer.

    “Fine,” he grunts. Hana doesn’t seem convinced. She looks over the devastated training range and marches over to him, grabbing one arm and tugging.

    “Come on,” she says when her not inconsequential strength doesn’t budge him.

    “Where? Why?”

    She digs her heels into the floor and pulls harder.

    “We’re getting ice cream,” she insists, “because you’re being broody.”

    “We’re not getting ice cream,” he objects, “because I’m not brooding.”

    “Right, and I’m not the reigning champ of every arcade from here to Dorado.” She gives him a more calculating look, shifts her stance, and yanks harder. This time she actually starts pulling him off balance until he actively resists.

    “Hana, I don’t need ice cream. And I’m not brooding.”

    “That’s exactly what a brooding anti-hero would say,” she challenges. “And you were yelling for the last ten minutes of your session, so I think I have a pretty good idea what’s going on in your head.”

    Jack’s heart plummets.

    “You… heard?”

    Hana’s expression softens; she’s seen too much for it to be pity, and some more rational part of Jack’s brain rails against her having that look at such a young age.

    “I know everyone’s trying to be real accepting of your decision not to say anything about who you are and what you used to do,” she says carefully, “but right now? I think you need to have some ice cream and stop ignoring your feelings.”

    “Look, kid—“ Jack tries to rally one more time, and Hana glares at him.

    “Is this helping?” She demands, gesturing at the destruction. “Do you feel better, or just tired?”

    Jack stays silent. Hana doesn’t back down.

    “Is it helping?” She asks again.

    “It’s none of your business.”

    “This _is_ my business,” she points to the fading smoke in the air, the twisted metal of the training bots, and the empty clips of ammunition. “This _team_ is my business. Multiplayer requires coordination, trust, and communication! You’re my teammate. Talk to me!”

    The words punch a hole in Jack’s lungs. For a moment, he wonders if he’s been shot. The world tilts. The last time he felt so unbalanced he was literally falling through the collapsing floors of the Swiss headquarters.

    “Talk to me!” He remembers screaming those words at Gabriel, remembers Gabriel howling back, “You aren’t listening!”

 

    Could it have turned out differently if they managed to communicate? If they both hadn’t been so proud as to not hear what the other said? Or had the wolves of Zenyatta’s story been fed long before?

    Jack’s head swims with the wondering. He staggers, and Hana catches him as best she can.

    “Old men shouldn’t be so heavy,” she grouses only half-seriously as she tries to balance him. Her jibe drags him back to the present and helps anchor him.

     “Little kids should eat their vegetables, and then maybe they wouldn’t be so weak,” he retorts. Hana huffs, but she does smile.

    “I’ll take you on any day,” she says. “ _After_ ice cream.”

    “Hana, I’m not eating ice cream,” he sighs, and before her pout can turn into a scowl, he adds, “I’m lactose intolerant.”

    Her laughter echoes through the training room and gives back a little bit of the warmth the darkness stole.

 

    Jack goes to bed having eaten more sorbet than was probably good for him, and dreams mostly of running a school where his teammates are his students. Halfway through recess, he looks up from breaking up a squabble between the Shimada brothers and the Junkers to see Gabriel standing in the doorway with a stricken look. The rest of the dream falls away to darkness.

    There’s a soft golden glow around the other man, just a gentle, fading light like a sunset aura.

    “ _Jack,_ ” he says. The word rips from his throat like a burr, jagged and wild.

    “Gabe,” replies Jack with a calm he doesn’t often feel when he’s awake.

    “ _Wanted to tell you —_ “ Gabriel grimaces. He can’t meet Jack’s gaze. He stares off to the side as if seeing something behind him. Jack checks; there’s nothing but the wall.

    “What did you want to tell me?” He prompts, hoping for some kind of reaction. Maybe in dreams he can get the closure he lacks in life.

    “ _Trying. Not here. There’s not enough left. Too little… too late! I’m too late! I’m—_ “

    The gold light extinguishes like a last breath, and Gabriel vanishes in the dark. Jack stares into nothing for a few minutes, then lies back and closes his eyes.

    There’s a sinking feeling in his chest that only grows denser, like a black hole, when he feels the Reaper Bean wiggle its way under his hand.

   

    He doesn’t sleep again that night.

 

    In the morning proper, he calls Mercy.

 

    “Is Reaper Gabriel?” He asks as soon as she connects. Her silence answers for her. He disconnects when neither of them speaks for a full minute, but he picks up when she calls back.

    “Reaper is what came back when I tried to resuscitate Gabriel,” she says. “I thought— I did it right, but he was already a monster in a man’s skin.”

    Jack looks down at the Reaper Bean curled up against his hip.

    “Shit,” he says.

    “Jack?” She asks. She sounds small. Tense and fragile. “Jack, please say something.”

    He takes a breath and opens his mouth to ask if the others know. Then he thinks of McCree and the way the cowboy trailed off in his pondering. He thinks of Winston, and of Tracer, and Reinhardt, and all the others. Who would know, except through him?

    “Have you had any luck catching him?” He asks instead.

    Angela lets out a breath that almost sounds like a sob.

    “No. No, we’ve just about lost him.”

    “Well. I guess we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”

    “Jack—“

    “What is the Bean, then, if it’s not Gabriel?”

    “I don’t know,” she says. “Honestly, I don’t. I ran every test I could think of, but all he said was your name unless he was talking about death.”

    “Huh,” says Jack.

    “I’ll give you a full report when we get back,” she promises. “Be safe.” Jack hums and ends the call.

 

    He doesn’t get to see Angela on her return because a terrorist op gone ironically bad results in an explosion that kills the terrorists, but triggers a landslide near Illios. The remaining members of Overwatch make an executive decision to head over there to help out in whatever ways they can. Some are more useful than others. Torbjörn rigs up lifts, Reinhardt is practically a back hoe all on his own, and Symmetra has an unparalleled eye for finding faults in structural integrity where the landscape will no longer support their efforts. Others stand guard or provide more basic forms of aid.

    Jack himself is primarily there as a field medic; their limited supply of biotic emitters are used sparingly for extreme trauma, but he has enough training to be a decent hand with bandages and splints. With his visor, he can more easily spot victims in the wreckage.

    Reaper Bean nests in the collar of his jacket when he suits up. Jack’s too focused on the mission to even notice until they’re all shin-deep in mud.

    “ _Jack,_ ” the Bean murmurs, nudging his ear. Soldier doesn’t startle, but his spine tenses. The Bean drops down and somehow moves over the ground like a little ghost. He watches it slither down a crack in the earth, and then there’s another peeping call.

    He makes his way over and sees the dirt shift like something below is trying to break free. The ground shudders, once, twice, and then goes still.

    “ _Jack,_ ” the Bean moans. Jack digs into the mound and carefully lifts blocks of ruined  walls off the head of an unconscious — but still breathing — civilian. He drops an emitter in against internal damage, and in the golden glow he sees the Reaper Bean pull itself out of the shadows and sigh.

    “Good work,” he tells the Bean. It immediately puffs up with pride. Jack has a moment of cognitive dissonance trying to connect the silly little Bean with both the menacing, monstrous Reaper and his mixed memories of Gabriel. It reminds him most of the early days, when the harshness of SEP training would wear him down, and he’d catch Gabriel’s eyes across the field. Gabriel used to smirk and square his shoulders and do something so amazing that Jack couldn’t help but feel like he had to join in.

    He shakes himself free of the moment. He has more work to do, and there are others who need more help.

 

    The Bean ends up finding three more wounded people in the mess; a paltry number in comparison to Reinhardt’s next lowest total of twenty-four, but still quite impressive given the size difference. Reinhardt himself is generous with his praise as they finish packing up under the carefully blind eyes of the official disaster relief agents. Overwatch slips back into the night as if they had never been there, and Jack wonders if that’s what it will be like for the rest of their tenure - benevolent ghosts, drifting through the world while slightly out of touch with it.

 

    He falls asleep in his seat on the trip back, Reaper Bean snoozing in his collar, still wondering. For the first time in ages, he doesn’t dream of Gabriel.

 

    He wakes to alarms. The transport hasn’t even touched down yet, but the recently returned London team is already scrambling to try and get them to turn around.

    “Reaper’s in Illios,” Winston explains.

    “Haven’t those poor people suffered enough?” Pharah shakes her head. “We need to resupply before we can meet you. We used up all our medical supplies, and didn’t bring significant offensive support.”

    There is no discussion of _not_ going, despite both teams being exhausted. The only one to stay behind his Reinhardt, who wrenched something in his back trying to lift a house, and who will only end up making it worse if he insists on staying in the field. No amount of orbs, music, Caduceus staff will combat old age.

    Jack hands the Bean to him with a grim look that translates even through his mask.

    “I don’t know what the hell this is, but it’s helped us so far, and I don’t want Reaper getting his claws on it,” he says. Reinhardt regards the Bean with utterly transparent protectiveness and nods.

    “Understood,” he says. “I shall take good care of your little friend.”

    “He’s not my—“

    “ _Jack!_ ” the Bean protests angrily, but it can’t escape the cage of the crusader’s hands.

    “We’ll be back,” Jack promises. He grabs extra ammo and heads back to the transport, trying not to miss the weight on the back of his neck.

 

    But by the time they arrive back in Greece, Reaper has already torn through the emptied town and disappeared back into the shadows. Jack regards the frustrated point team with resigned compassion that he wishes he didn’t feel, because it reminds him far too much of the days of the old Overwatch, when things still teetered between greatness and collapse.

    Genji alone looks to have some measure of calm about him, but Jack suspects it’s a thin grasp at best. Hanzo paces; too controlled to show any sign of his inner dragon, but fighting it by staying in constant motion. Stillness is calm, but for him it’s also being trapped. McCree also paces, but his path is a looping perimeter rather than a straight line, and the chimera ripples under his skin like a shark in blood-tinted waters. Winston, Mei, and Angela huddle close together and murmur science over screens.

    Soldier is about to go over to them, jargon or not, for an update when McCree suddenly stops, backtracks, grabs Jack by the shoulder, and sniffs his collar. Jack barely even blinks and internally laments that this isn’t the most unusual thing he’s seen Jesse do, even after the Recall. Hanzo’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, though, and Jack considers his chances against a jealous dragon until Jesse pulls back with a confused look and a sneeze.

    “Why do you smell like Reyes?” He asks.

   

    Well. That’s interesting.

 

    The rest of Overwatch bursts into a flurry of questions and theories. He can’t even begin to start answering — he doesn’t even know half the answers himself — so he raises his hands and his voice and shouts over top them all.

    “We will discuss this back at the base!”

    He tries not to acknowledge the satisfied jut of Hana’s chin. Goodness knows she doesn’t need any more fuel for her ego.

   

    All too soon, the entirety of the team is crammed into the briefing room. It wouldn’t be nearly so cramped, but McCree is in a Mood and no one but Hanzo really wants to stand next to him in case he gets porcupine spikes again.

    “All right, let’s get this over with.” Jack grumbles. Reaper Bean, nestled once more in the collar of his jacket, trills quietly. “You, you’re a damn menace. It was supposed to be a _secret identity_.”

    The Bean, obligingly, chirps, “ _Jack!_ ”

    Jack buries his face in his palms and decides the best way to to progress is to just take off his visor and face mask.

    So he does.

    His teammates go silent, only a few of them from actual surprise. The rest watch.

    “Well, that’s the first thing,” he says. “Second thing. Athena? Give me a picture of Reaper.” Athena pulls up an earlier picture of the mercenary, one where he still looks human, albeit a human with a questionable sense of fashion. “This son of a gun jumped up the ranks of our Most Dangerous Enemies list because of two things. One, he turned into a big tentacle monster with too many damn teeth, and two, he used to be —“ Athena pulls up one of the few pictures of Gabriel without prompting, “— who is just as dangerous as a monster, if not more so.”

    The Overwatch team members who remember Gabriel but did not yet know his fate gasp. More than a few look to McCree, who is stone-faced, but holding on to his humanity quite well. Hanzo has one finger hooked around Jesse’s little finger, which might be helping.

    “Here’s where things get complicated.” Jack reaches up and grabs the Bean, depositing it on the table with an all too familiar splat-squeak.

    “Reaper Bean!” Hana exclaims with genuine delight. McCree stares at her like she’s the one who might suddenly strangle someone with tentacles. Angela covers her chuckle, but Hana quickly puts pieces together. “Wait, how does that work?” She picks up the Bean, who squawks in annoyance. “Are you some kind of synchronized peripheral? Because if you’re spyware, I’m going to be so pissed off.”

    “We’re really not sure,” Angela apologizes. “Even with Jesse and Hanzo’s assistance, there isn’t really much research on their… ah… condition.”

    Hanzo doesn’t flinch or even really shrink behind McCree, but he does a fascinating job of somehow being less noticeable. McCree, on the other hand, smiles without the expression reaching his eyes.

    “Ain’t that many of us that come back from it, from what I gather,” he drawls. “Nor keep getting ourselves back in and out, neither.”

    “Then what _is_ it?” Hana asks, peering dubiously at the Bean.

    “Doesn’t smell the same as Reaper,” Jesse shrugs. “Which is damn weird, if you ask me.”

    “Don’t ask me,” Jack sighs. “It dropped off the transport unit from the Eichenwald mission.”

    “The one where Eastwood went to town on Cthulhu?” Lúcio winces. So does McCree.

    “I suppose we could try and run some more tests on it…” Winston reaches for the Bean, but it recoils, jumping out of Hana’s grasp and sliding under the table.

    “Oh, come on.” Jack groans. Somewhere beneath them, the Bean hisses. McCree glowers. Something like a growl reverberates in his chest. Perhaps most surprisingly, Hanzo does the same.

    “Don’t gang up on the little guy!” Hana says, startling both grown men.

    “Hana, darling, it could be evil.” Jesse attempts to be reasonable, a feat he is ill prepared to undertake. Hana turns expectantly to Angela and Winston.

    “Is he evil?”

    The two exchange wary glances and end up shrugging.

    “As I said, we’re really not sure what it is, just that it’s related to Reaper somehow,” Winston says.

    “ _Jack!_ ” crows the Bean, pressing up against Jack’s ankle. Jack’s face goes slightly red, and he fumbles with his mask to cover it.

    “And it does that,” Angela adds with unnecessary sagacity.

    “Right. So. Everyone’s on the same page?” Jack asks abruptly.

    “No one’s sure of anything and everything’s damn confusing?” Jesse raises an eyebrow.

    “Yup. Okay. If you’ve got any ideas, let Winston or Angela know. I’m going to bed.”

 

    He stalks off before anyone can stop him. The Bean slides after him, a secondary shadow that peeps when ever he gets too far ahead. It’s probably very telling that he alters his pace to accommodate.

    He storms into his room and through the necessary preparations for sleep. When he comes out of the bathroom, the Reaper Bean waits cautiously at the foot of his bed. It is, he recalls, the same distance he used to keep from Gabriel when they were fighting, before things got bad. Close enough to be in reach if he really wanted to cross the distance, but far enough away to give him his space.

    “ _Jack?_ ” the Bean chirps softly, and Jack drops into bed like a puppet with its strings cut.

    “What the hell are you, Bean?” he demands without heat. The Bean is silent, watchful without eyes, a model sort of guardian. Jack pats the pillow next to him, and the Bean slithers up to him immediately.

    He closes his eyes, but he doesn’t stop watching. He doesn’t sleep. After a moment, the air pressure changes, and the bed dips as the weight distribution shifts.

    “ _Jack,_ ” he hears Gabriel whisper. Cold, dry fingers graze his temple, and Jack latches on to the hand connected to them like a viper. His eyes fly open.

    Gabriel is half made of smoke and shadow, but the rest of him is how Jack remembers, right down to the Blackwatch logo on his gear.

    “What _are_ you?” He presses. Gabriel gives him a gallows smile, black smoke leaking out between his white teeth.

    “ _Vestigial,_ ” he says.

    “None of that shit,” Jack growls. “Give me a straight answer!”

    Gabriel chuckles, fond but fading.

    “ _Last fragments of good from a man who became a monster._ ” He pulls back. His wrist slips through Jack’s grasp in a way that bones and flesh should not. “ _Not much left, though. Guess there wasn’t much to begin with, huh?_ ”

    Jack’s heart strangles his voice with conflicting words. Every reaction screams bitter betrayal, about secrets and lies and blood and bodies no one ever found. Older instincts hiss other secrets, about sacrifice and lives saved and peace brokered.

    _Listen_ , those older instincts command. _Listen and remember, or the monster really will win. You lamented not listening before. Listen now._

 

    “You saved lives,” Jack says. He’s gratified to see some of the smoke fade away, leaving Gabriel’s blank stare unclouded.

    “ _Once,_ ” he concedes faintly, as if trying to recall a dream, “ _a long time ago._ ”

    “Today,” Jack insists, and oh, there are the oh so familiar lines of Gabriel’s scowl, the one that almost looks like the pout he used to wear when Jack tried to convince him some outlandish lie was actually a Midwestern Tradition he just had to try.

    “ _Not strong enough,_ ” Gabriel shakes his head minutely.

    “What, it was some other stupid beanbag that showed us where to find those injured people?” Jack challenges and watches realization dawn across Gabriel’s face. He smiles, _really_ _smiles_ , the way Jack remembers from after fighting side-by-side with him, and then suddenly hope crumples to pain. Gabriel curls in on himself, clutching at his chest.

    “ _Damn,_ ” he growls. “ _I wish—_ “ The darkness collapses over him, and then there’s just the Reaper Bean, folded nearly in half and trembling like a leaf in a storm.

    Jack reaches out and finds the little creature alarmingly cool to the touch, so he pulls it closer to his chest.

    “Please don’t forget,” he whispers to himself as much as to it, trying to hold on to the memory of Gabriel’s features still lit up by hope. He clings to it even as sleep overtakes him.

 

    A pattern starts to evolve in the tumultuous days that follow. Jack trains and goes on missions, providing aid during disasters and protection during attacks by the various rogue elements crawling out of the gutters and shadows. Sometimes Reaper Bean follows him on missions, nestling in the collar of his jacket, a second pair of eyes watching his back and whispering the locations of enemies or wounded civilians. Sometimes the Bean stays on base at the behest of Winston or Angela’s need for more data, or sometimes it stays simply to wait with Zenyatta whenever Genji’s gone. Jack’s not entirely sure why it likes Zenyatta; perhaps the monk is simply restful company.

    Sometimes Reaper will show up, tearing through empty battlegrounds and deserted towns in a cloud of black dust and rage before disappearing again. Sometimes nothing follows, and everyone holds their breath until the next time, wondering why the mercenary-monster isn’t attacking and while being thankful at the same time that he didn’t. Jack’s got an inkling of a pattern, but there’s too many unexplained holes, and he’s not willing to suggest an op without filling them in, first. Not when it means risking losing the Bean, and with it, his last link to Gabriel.

 

    Now that Jack has seen the Bean for what it is, it’s like some kind of line has been drawn. Every night that they’re in the same place, Reaper Bean waits on the threshold of Jack’s space. Every night, Jack invites him closer, and the Bean pulls himself together in Gabriel’s shape. They talk, in their own way. There’s as much said with words as there is without. Gabriel tells him, in his halting, struggling voice, about the corruption that crept through the ranks of Blackwatch, about the risks he took to try and carve it out that backfired one after another. He runs his hands over Jack’s scars, old and new, and lets Jack’s fingers tap staccato rhythms on the column of his throat where his pulse should be. Jack tells him, in just as unsteady a tone, of the traps and tap dance-minefields he faced from the bickering governments backing the original Overwatch. They both hung on spiderwebs of lies and deceit in those days, never realizing that as they struggled to breathe, they suffocated each other. It shames and humbles them; there are moments in their nights where Jack feels no bigger than the Bean.

    It occurs to him, slowly, that the Bean _isn’t_ Gabriel. Not entirely. He’s an echo of who Gabriel used to be; a loud echo, sometimes, but not always. He’s pieces of a shattered picture, faded colors and eroded edges, just enough to offer the moments they never got to steal. He has traces of Gabriel’s acerbic humor, but not the bite that goes with it. He possess only a cinder of the man’s burning passion, feeling pain more keenly than any other emotion tied to their shared past. He struggles with the gaps where those qualities that made Gabriel a great man twisted to make him a monster.

    It hurts to see someone who is so close to being the man Jack loved, but who isn’t quite there. It hurts to see that even this faint copy regards him with genuine affection long gone from the original’s heart. It hurts, and it hurts, and it hurts, and Jack won’t give it up for all the world.

   

    So of course Reaper has to take it from him.

 

    After weeks of bloodless sightings, Reaper shows up in Hanamura while Jack and the Bean accompany the Shimada brothers to retrieve some things from their family’s home. Jesse, Zenyatta, and Hana are also along, but Hana’s conspicuous MEKA waits back with the transport in hiding. She’s already recognizable enough as is, and several gamers by the arcade keep trying to get her attention.

    Hanzo is more alert on her behalf, which is why he catches sight of the dark, many-mouthed shape crawling out from behind the arcade sign.

    “Enemy spotted!” He shouts, drawing his bow and firing an arrow into a reaching tentacle. The team immediately takes defensive positions, covering Hana as she summons her MEKA.

    McCree whistles, somehow making an innocent sound insolent.

    “This seems like all sorts of bad stereotypes,” he says. “Tentacle monster in Japan and a girl with a robot suit…”

    “If you and my brother revert to your beast forms, we will even have _kaiju_ ,” Genji says, sounding inordinately amused. “I dare you to call him that to his face.”

    Hanzo glowers, but McCree’s grin is feral and fearless.

    “Well, I’ll tell you, he’s a real beast in the—“

    “Now is not the time for that!” Hanzo interrupts. Hana’s MEKA lands, and she climbs in muttering about the indecency of the older generation. Jack ignores the shenanigans to fire a round of helix rockets into the shadowy monster.

    “ ** _Jack_ ** **,** ” it rasps like a rushing river at the bottom of a deep cave, a tone of undertow filled with sharp rocks. Jack’s skin crawls to hear it; in the chill that pulls him under, the Bean’s borrowed warmth feels like a brand on the back of his neck.

    The team unloads their weapons into Reaper’s monstrous form, but every piece of ammunition, shuriken, and arrow all sink into the darkness like tar. He laughs. Tentacles and bone fragments lash out, knocking them all prone in an instant. Reaper looms over Soldier:76 like the executioner’s blade.

    “ ** _JACK._ ** ” The white, owl-like mask rolls up as a large, jagged mouth opens in the oleaginous mass. An elongated tongue slides over teeth like stalagmites, and other mouths crack into mocking grins elsewhere on the writhing shape. It plunges towards him.

    Jack grabs for his gun, but something else moves faster: Reaper Bean launches itself at its larger counterpart with a harsh cry.

    “Don’t—!” Jack gets out before the monstrous tongue wraps around the Bean and drags it into Reaper’s gullet, swallowing it whole. Jack doesn’t even have time to feel the sting of loss before an even larger set of jaws snap closed over Reaper’s ‘head’ and tear it clean off.

    The chimera tosses its grisly prize aside, alligator maw still dripping ichor as coyote paws brace against the pavement and a scorpion tail arches behind it. Reaper’s body quickly liquifies and reshapes itself to replace the lost mass, not even inconvenienced by the attack. Reaper grows to match the chimera’s size, only to be tackled by an equally impressive blue dragon. The three monsters fall on each other in a flurry of fangs and claws, and Genji lands briefly beside Jack to help him to his feet.

    “I wasn't serious when I suggested a _kaiju_ fight!” the cyborg yells over his shoulder. Jack resists the urge to scold him; if Genji hasn’t learned not to court fate yet, he certainly won’t because of Jack’s warnings.

    Instead, he scrambles over to the mess McCree tore off, hoping— what is he hoping? Hoping to find that last bit of his former friend and almost love? Hoping he doesn’t have to lose the smile that makes his nights less lonely? Hoping he hasn’t missed the closest thing he’s felt to a second chance?

    He doesn’t know what, only that he digs into the viscous dark and nearly tears up when his hands close around the Bean’s small shape. He pulls it free. The Bean shivers uncontrollably, making a thin distressed sound as the rest of the remains dissolve.

    “Is he all right?” Hana asks.

    “I don’t know,” Jack admits, holding it closer. “Zenyatta, do you—“

    He stops in the middle of asking for the monk’s opinion, momentarily awed as Zenyatta unfolds a dozen illuminated arms. His orbs circle around him like the movement of planets, and he is the sun incarnate amidst them.

    In the light of the Iris, time seems to slow, and the sounds of violence fade away. The Reaper Bean convulses, glows, and takes Gabriel’s form. His eyes, however, remain closed.

    “A man walks with two wolves, and all his life he must chose which to feed.” Zenyatta holds up a golden orb. “I can help him, but he will have to face his monster himself, and even if he wins now, it is a fight he must make again and again. He may not always be victorious. Or…” He holds up another orb, this one black and violet. “You can destroy your enemy. The remnant of his other nature will fade without the rest of him to sustain it, but he will never again hurt another person. His fight will end for good.

    “In this situation, I cannot use both. Which would you have me ‘feed’?”

    “You’re asking _me_?” Jack gapes, desperately trying to divide his attention between the actual monster fight, the glowing monk, and the lingering ghost of his oldest friend. “It’s his life, ask him!”

    “He cannot chose,” Zenyatta answers, “Or more accurately, I can sense both paths equally before him. He is quite literally a man divided. So I ask you, which one will you feed?”

    Jack looks down at Gabriel’s scarred face, creased with pain, and he looks over at Reaper, tentacles wrapped around the dragon’s throat and teeth buried in the chimera’s side.

    He points to an orb and bows his head.

    “If I chose the other,” he says, “I’d be feeding two monsters.”

    Zenyatta releases the rejected orb to rejoin the others.

    “So be it,” he says. The Iris closes.

    The clash of titans in the street once more dominates the immediate environment, especially when both dragon and chimera are thrown violently into the walls of the nearby building. For all their willingness to wear their monstrosity to fight, they are still human at heart, whereas Reaper’s heart was torn from his chest, leaving only the monster behind.

    Jesse and Hanzo fall to the ground, each still trying to protect the other.

    “Brother!” Genji yells. Reaper turns towards him, but it’s someone else who steps forward to meet him. Genji gasps as he recognizes Gabriel striding forward like a man heading for the front lines, a Harmony Orb tethered to his heart.

    “He’s going to get killed!” Hana hisses. “He’s not even armed!”

    “It is his monster,” Genji replies. “He cannot run from it; if he cannot conquer it, than he is lost to it.”

    “I don’t play enough Persona for this,” she grumbles.

    Gabriel lunges forward, and Reaper rushes him in return. They collide more solidly than anything that’s hit Reaper yet, and Gabriel’s gloved hands dig into the oozing shadows without disappearing. Reaper smirks. Mad laughter echoes from his extraneous mouths. Gabriel just grits his teeth and tightens his grip.

    Reaper pushes. Gabriel pushes back.

    Tentacles wind around Gabriel’s legs, and shadows creep up his sides, but nothing manages to dislodge the golden cords around his heart, and Gabriel shoves back harder. Reaper’s talons fold nearly double over his hands, but Gabriel just twists his wrist and _pulls_.

    Reaper’s arm shreds, nearly torn all the way off. It oozes down Gabriel’s arm and renders everything below the elbow dead weight as it hardens.

    “ **_Too late to change my mind now,_ ** ” Reaper chuckles. “ **_There’s no going back on what I’ve done. Give in. Give up._ ** ”

    “ _Do I look like a fucking hostage negotiator?_ ” Gabriel growls back. “ _I’m the goddamn assault squad!_ ”

    “ **_Too late for that, too._ ** ” Reaper sneers. “ **_Too late for everything. Too little, too late._ ** ” One handed, Reaper’s next push staggers Gabriel, forcing him back a step. He has no sharp come back. His fingers slip deeper into the darkness, and Reaper’s triumphant purr gurgles like oil spilling into the ocean by the gallon. “ **_I’ll get revenge. I’ll make them pay for what they did.  I’ll make every last one of them choke on the blighted ashes of the things they loved best, just like I did._ ** ” Reaper pushes again, sliding Gabriel back another half step, but no further. Gabriel’s back comes to a stop against something solid that wasn’t there a heartbeat earlier, and Jack wraps his arms around Gabriel’s chest.

    “I missed a lot of things about you, Gabe, but your monologues aren’t one of them,” he grumbles, feeling the other man momentarily tense and relax. Reaper growls and shoves harder, but Jesse is on his feet and has his broad shoulders supporting their backs while his wild eyes are surprisingly kind.

    “C’mon, old timer, I got you.”

    Where Jesse goes, Hanzo is sure to follow, and right behind Hanzo are Genji and Zenyatta, with Hana’s MEKA anchoring the crew.

    Jack locks his hands over Gabriel’s heart and feels the warmth of the Harmony Orb’s light on his skin.

    “You lost this fight before, but you were alone then. You don’t have to face it alone again,” he says. Gabriel’s shoulders shake with something that could have been either a laugh or a sob if it could make it past his recalcitrance.

    “ _Not so sure about that, Jack. Even if I make it, what’s that get me?_ ”

    “You’ll never know if you don’t show up to find out.” Jack squeezes, trying to convey a promise he can’t actually make yet. It’s a potential promise, a promise of ‘maybe’. It’s all he’s got.

   

    For a moment, it’s not enough.

 

    For a moment, Gabriel sighs and goes slack against him, and the terrible tentacles twist around and drag him from Jack’s arms.

 

    For a moment, he loses Gabriel to the darkness again, and his heart stops in a way that’s usually fatal for a man his age.

 

    But Gabriel doesn’t just dissipate in the shadows the way the Bean always collapsed before. Instead, Jack catches a look on his face — _the_ look on Gabriel’s face — as Reaper tries to devour him whole again. Jack knows that look. He’s seen it before. It’s the look Gabriel wore — wears? — when he’s about to dive headfirst into enemy lines, guns blazing as he dances with death.

    Gabriel catches Jack’s eye and smirks before Reaper closes over him like a shroud.

    Half the team stares in horror and despair. Not Jack. Not Jesse. Jesse puts himself immediately in front of Hanzo, ignoring the archer’s outraged protestations. Genji tugs Jack’s shoulder. Hana says something, but Jack isn’t quite listening. He’s watching the darkness writhe and pulse, watching it swell and collapse on itself as something inside fights to get out.

    Zenyatta says nothing, but suddenly his Harmony Orb rips out of the black shape and comes singing back to his hand.

 

    The shadows finally settle into the shape of a man in a long black coat with a hood pulled over his head. He is bent over, legs braced to steady him, talon-tipped gauntlets clutching at his throat and chest. He looks up and stares at them through the white, emotionless Reaper mask.

    “Jack?” He rasps. His voice is harsh and still echoes oddly but it’s the note of uncertainty that starts Jack’s abused heart beating again.

    “Gabe,” Jack breathes, and the man claws at his mask until he tears both it and his hood off. Gabriel’s face stares back with Reaper’s red eyes, but the scarred visage shows more wonder than wrath. He moves, possibly to take a step forward, but his knee buckles, and he sinks to the pavement like a forgotten doll. Emotions play over his bared face, complicated juxtapositions of regret and pride, of guilt and defensiveness. It’s an aftershock of the more physical confrontation, but the tremors are just as dangerous, so Jack crosses the distance between them and takes Gabriel’s face in his hands, forcing him to meet his gaze.

    “Should have let me die, Jack,” Gabriel whispers. “I don’t know that I can keep winning this one.”

    “You willing to give it a shot?” Jack asks. Gabriel focuses on him with frightening intensity, but he doesn’t move, not even to blink. “Gabe?”

    “Yeah,” Gabriel says. “This is… this is really us?”

    Jack answers by taking off his mask and visor. Gabriel’s gaze drops to Jack’s mouth, and Jack feels heat under his cheeks like he’s a teenager again.

    Gabriel’s tongue slips out to lick his dry lips.

    “Can I—“ he starts, and then Jack’s kissing him, trying to breathe the air from inside his lungs. Hands roam and tug at hair, at armor, at ridiculous coats and jackets. Teeth nip, lips press to sensitive skin and scars alike.

   

    Someone behind them clears their throat, and Jack realizes he did all of that in front of his team.

    “I sure as hell ain’t gonna make any judgments,” drawls McCree, “but maybe you two wanna find a better time and place than the middle of the street? We kinda just had a giant monster fight here, and that’s gonna be all kinds of conspicuous.”

    Genji chuckles, and even Hanzo snorts.

    Gabriel slumps forward until his head rests on Jack’s shoulder.

  
    “You’ll probably regret this one day. I’m not a good man anymore.”

    “You’re probably right,” admits Jack, who knows just as well the limits of his own goodness. “I’m kind of an asshole, too. So, when we screw up, we can damn well stop each other from feeding the wrong wolf.”

    Gabriel smiles and leans in closer.

 

    Then he stops and leans back, confusion written plainly across his face.

   

    “Wait. What wolf?”

 

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The One You Feed[Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11237508) by [Arioch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arioch/pseuds/Arioch)




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